TLDR Fintech 2025-10-09

Moneybox, Checkout .com, and Polymarket all use the best-performing AI agent for financial services — Fin. Made by Intercom, Fin:

>> follows your business rules,

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Unlike generic chatbots, Fin was built for regulated financial services companies. It's the only complete, fully configurable AI agent system in the industry.

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Verizon has appointed former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman as its new chief executive, replacing Hans Vestberg after seven years at the helm. Schulman, who has served on Verizon's board since 2018, will lead the company through its next growth phase, including the integration of its $20 billion Frontier acquisition. The board cited Schulman's record of “transformative leadership” at PayPal, where he tripled revenue, as key to guiding Verizon's customer and financial turnaround.

Fifth Third will buy Comerica in an all-stock deal valued at $10.9b, creating a ~$288b-asset bank expected to close by Q1 2026. Comerica holders get 1.8663 Fifth Third shares per share (about a 20% premium), with pro forma ownership ~73% Fifth Third / ~27% Comerica. The bank targets top-5 share in the Southeast, Texas, and California, No. 1 retail deposits in Michigan, and projects ~9% EPS accretion with no tangible book value dilution.

Ramp has introduced new AI agents that scan vendor and payment data to catch fraudulent invoices before they're paid. During a 90-day pilot, the agents flagged over $1 million in fake invoices for dozens of corporate clients, including one blockchain firm that narrowly avoided a $50,000 loss. Backed by Founders Fund, Ramp is doubling down on AI automation after two mega funding rounds, positioning its platform to compete with Stripe and other fintechs racing to make bill payments both smarter and safer.

Nubank has filed for a US banking charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, aiming to expand beyond its 122 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. The fintech plans to eventually offer deposits, credit cards, lending, and digital asset custody in the US. The move underscores the challenges global neobanks face entering the US market, following stalled applications from Bunq, Revolut, and Monzo.

Fintechs are racing to secure US bank charters in 2025, with 20 filings already this year—an all-time high. The move marks a strategic shift as mature fintechs seek greater control over deposits, lending, and payments amid a favorable regulatory window. For some, owning a charter promises lower funding costs, improved margins, and freedom from sponsor bank dependence, though it demands heavy compliance investment and cultural change. The winners will likely be scaled fintechs that evolve into full-service banks, accelerating pressure on traditional players to modernize, acquire fintechs, and deliver digital-first, customer-centric experiences before the gap widens further.

This post outlines two winning approaches for vertical AI startups: selling AI-powered software or services to customers willing to pay for efficiency gains, or using “hidden AI” to compete directly with incumbents by rebuilding operations with AI at the core. Founders' success depends on matching their technical or operational strengths to the right model—copilots and AI agents for augmenting workflows, or AI-native operators quietly redefining legacy industries.

Banking is quietly splitting in two: deposit-taking and payments on one side, lending on the other. Traditional banks blur the two by funding risky loans with deposits, but the trend toward “narrow banking” imagines deposits backed only by ultra-safe assets like government bills or central bank reserves. Private credit funds are taking over the lending role, while stablecoins are emerging as the new kind of narrow bank issuing digital “deposits” backed entirely by risk-free assets.

AI's value no longer lies in its interface but in the invisible “work layer” that determines how systems reason, retrieve context, and take action. This shift marks the rise of “systems of work,” where differentiation stems from orchestration logic rather than design. As software moves beyond data ownership and UI polish, the next winners will be defined by how effectively their architecture turns AI capability into reliable business automation.

Most payment platforms make you choose: flexibility and innovation or scale and reliability. Marqeta's platform gives you both.

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Revolut has officially launched in India, targeting the $30 billion Indians spend overseas each year and the $600 million they lose to bank fees, which its India CEO calls “criminal.” The fintech aiming for 20 million users by 2030 has secured key regulatory licenses, including a prepaid payment instrument license, to offer UPI-linked wallets, multi-currency Visa cards, and same-day remittances.

Snowflake has launched Cortex AI for Financial Services, a suite of tools that lets financial institutions securely deploy AI models and agents within strict regulatory and data security frameworks. Developed with partners like FactSet, MSCI, Anthropic, and Salesforce, the platform's core feature is its managed Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, which connects proprietary data with third-party sources for seamless AI integration.

Square Bitcoin, built for local businesses of all sizes, is the first fully integrated bitcoin payments and wallet solution. Consisting of Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Conversions, Square Bitcoin enables sellers to accept bitcoin payments with zero processing fees, automatically convert card sales into bitcoin, and manage their bitcoin alongside their other business finances, all within the Square ecosystem.

Portugal-based Feedzai has raised $75 million from investors including Lince Capital, Iberis Capital, and Explorer Investments, pushing its valuation above $2 billion. The company builds AI-powered tools for financial crime prevention, helping institutions combat fraud, scams, and money laundering. Feedzai's platform now protects over $70 billion in annual payments and prevents more than $2 billion in potential losses each year, as it expands products like Feedzai Orchestration and Feedzai IQ.

Jeff Bezos drew a sharp line between “financial” and “industrial” bubbles during a rare appearance at Italian Tech Week, arguing that while financial manias like 2008 leave destruction, industrial ones—like the internet or biotech booms—leave behind transformative infrastructure. He warned that today's AI surge mirrors those past cycles: valuations may collapse, but the technology's impact will ripple through every industry. Bezos urged founders to learn from well-run companies, stay customer-obsessed, and focus on building long-term value—because when the dust settles, only what's useful endures.

Checkout.com, a leading global digital payments company, today announced a series of innovations across its product suite, designed to keep merchants ahead in a rapidly evolving digital economy.

Ramp's VP of Product, Geoff Charles, announced that he will host a Reddit AMA on October 9 from 2–4 pm ET at r/ramp.